Click to play videoNew Delhi: After dominating the Indian psyche for over 30 years, the slogan Hum Do Hamare Do is finally going to fade out.
The Government on Tuesday approached the Supreme Court saying it didn't want to penalise mothers who become pregnant with a third child.
Until now, the Government provided a one-time assistance of Rs 500 to expecting mothers who had conceived their first or second child. But now they want this two-children cap to be removed.
“The emphasis is on nutrition, not on population control. You can’t have mothers and children dying, “ says senior Supreme Court advocate Colin Gonsalves.
But the Supreme Court was not impressed with the Government’s logic. In a country where the population is nearing 1.2 billion, the Court said:
‘You cannot keep producing children and expect the tax-payers to pay money for such schemes.’
Even the Opposition didn’t buy the Government reasoning.
“You need to incentivise those who aid in population control and disincentivise those who promote population growing in excess,” says BJP leader Arun Jaitley.
The Government logic is that in a country with one of the infant mortality rates in the world, it wasn't possible to deprive a would-be-mother and her child valuable nutrition.
WHAT THE GOVERNMENT SAYS | |
THEN | NOW |
Under the earlier Government scheme, every pregnant woman of the BPL (below poverty line) and APL (above poverty line) families was entitled to a cash assistance of Rs 500 per delivery that was restricted to a maximum of two deliveries. | Under the modified proposal, the Centre said it was decided to remove the cap on two deliveries -- making the assistance available for every deliveries irrespective of the number of children a woman might deliver in the low performing (LP) states. |
In fact, the Government is even removing the age bar for the scheme. Earlier, only mothers above 19 could avail of this benefit.
At the moment, it may appear that the Government is softening its stand on the population policy but it also needs to be kept in mind that incentive-based population control measures have failed world wide.
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